On Hundertwasser's Japanese woodcuts
Hundertwasser was the first European painter whose work was cut and printed by Japanese masters.
He saw woodcuts by Hiroshige and Hokusai for the first time in Italy in 1950 and he was deeply impressed. As opposed to the heavy and often crude woodcuts from the west the Japanese work appeared to Hundertwasser to be markedly light and floating, as if painted in watercolours.
Immediately afterwards he created his first sketches for woodcuts, but it was to be 10 years until Hundertwasser would travel to Tokyo and make contact with Japanese woodcarvers.
On invitation of Tokyo Gallery Hundertwasser lived in Tokyo from February until August 1961. It was extremely difficult to convince them to work with an European artist, but in August 1961 he worked on the colour extracts of his first Japanese woodcut that was created after one of his works by the Japanese studio Adachi Kobo. (484A Houses in rain of blood).
Walter Koschatzky wrote: „The technique of ukiyo-e, as practiced by Utamaro, Hokusai, and Hiroshige, still survived in a few workshops faithful to traditional methods. Hundertwasser sought to employ his own art to infuse fresh vigor into the repetition of old motifs.“[1]
From 1966 to 1971 seven Japanese woodcuts were printed which were published in 1973 in the portfolio „Nana Hyaku Mizu“. Two more portfolios with Japanese woodcuts were published in 1975 (Midori No Namida) and in 1988 (Joy of Man). During his artistic career Hundertwasser created 40 Japanese woodcuts.
From the beginning the large number of necessary colour plates for the printing of the many colours were an unusual challenge for the japanese masters. Hundertwassers woodcuts are printed in up to 34 Farben colours.
According to Hundertwassers postulation of a complete disclosure of a work’s technique, its creation dates and edition the following details can be found on the Japanese woodcuts:
the hand written work number, numbering and date of the work by Hundertwasser and his personal signature, in manuscript and as Japanese inkan stamps. More inkans name the wood cutter, the printer and the studio as well as the coordinator. In the case of many Japanese colour woodcuts the title of the work was printed in Japanese characters.
Hundertwasser documented the work of the Japanese masters with circular dots in the margins of the woodcuts, thereby marking what was taken from the source work. Square or numbered dots refer to Hundertwasser’s own work for the woodcut, marking what was newly developed for the work.
[1] Koschatzky, Walter: Friedensreich Hundertwasser, The complete graphic work 1951-1986, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1986, p. 52